It is customary to place pipe, long rods, long angle and channel irons and the like on the floors of factories, warehouses, or the like, for ease of handling. This arrangement presents a serious loss of space and considerable shifting of the bars and pipes is often necessary in order to obtain the desired length or size of article which may be at the bottom of the pile. In hardware or building supply retailers, however, the elongated articles cannot be stored on the floor and are typically stored upright in bins. The articles must be withdrawn from the bins by lifting up and over any supporting structure which is often a difficult and awkward task. Furthermore, there is a limited amount of display space available throughout a hardware store yet the space immediately behind the bin is often wasted as there is not enough merchandise to fill that space. Typically, large scaffolding frames supporting durable shelving is installed in hardware stores to maximize the tall ceiling storage space. These scaffold structures often have up to a three-foot depth which is wasted by utilizing vertical bins for storing elongated articles.
Several devices for storing elongated articles in cylindrical units capable of being rotated are known. In particular, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,526,245, issued to Lathrop, a rotatable support apparatus for pipes is shown. A tubular upright mast 19 is rotatably supported at a lower end on a bearing 12. A platform 21, horizontally fixed at the lower end of the tubular mast 19, supports a number of elongated articles extending vertically upward which are retained by an upper circular band or ring 42. Partition walls are provided to segregate the elongated articles according to size or for other reasons. The support apparatus of Lathrop suffers, however, from the sometimes difficult procedure of withdrawing articles. Specifically, if the support apparatus is filled with elongated articles, it is difficult to withdraw one article from within the solidly packed bunch of articles.
The present invention provides a space-efficient storage and display unit which overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art.